You may think Neftali Feliz is going to be the Texas Closer this year, but if the Rangers have their way, Feliz will be in the starting rotation to start 2011, just like they converted CJ Wilson in 2010.

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/mlb/news/story?id=6190761

This is probably the smartest move for the Rangers, since Webb is likely to begin the season on the DL and they no longer have Cliff Lee to anchor their rotation; however, fot the fantasy baseball owner who draft Feliz to be their number one closer for 2011, this could sink you scoring ability in the Saves category.

It is definitely way too late for any paper publication to switch Feliz to the Starting Pitcher position, and I am not sure if other on-line sites will make the change until the Texas rangers make an official announcement around 3/22/2011. On the other hand, I am recommending that RotoRank subscribers treat Feliz as Starting Pitcher for 2011 fantasy baseball draft purposes.

The reason I made the change in my RotoRank projections is due to the fact that I could not bring myself to draft feliz as a closer during my draft on 3/6/2011.  If I didn’t use my projections to do my 2011 fantasy baseball drafts, then I may have never realized the issue with his classification.  If you draft feliz as a Starting Pitcher, and he returns to the Closer role, you’ll more likely to benefit from the switch.  If you were to draft Feliz as your primary Closer, and a few weeks into the season Feliz is made into a Starting Pitcher, than your entire pitching staff could be disrupted.

A few other items I adjusted based upon my experience in the 3/6/2011 draft was the fact that I had too many outfielders ranked in the Top 100. Although I really like quite a few outfielders as comeback plays this year, I feel that I can bump down the fantasy baseball projections on a few outfielders so that they will still be obvious draft choices in the appropriate rounds without losing sight of some scarcer  key infield players.